07/08/07
6th day fun 7th day pain -
Categories: The Edinburgh Festival is quite possibly the worst place in the world to have a hangover. No matter where you go, there are loads of people and horrendous amounts of noise. While in post-drunken sadness today, I passed 2 brass bands, some singing kids, something else that was loud and couldn't even look at due to pain and a bagpipes player all in one stretch of street. I'm fairly sure the bagpipes were invented while pissed, and yet their sound that is not too dissimilar to a cat being maimed is one of the worst things you can hear when you feel ill.
The reason for the hangover was the Fringe launch party last night. Far from being so good I drank to enjoy it, it was a hugely disorganised mess and we had to do 3 sketches on a cabaret stage in front of 30 people who didn't give a shit and talked all the way through. So to heal I had to stay at the Teviot until 5am engaging in merry banter with a mix of old friends, comedy buddies and random people with whom I had senseless slurry conversations. Hurray!
The downside of this of course was the several times aforementioned pain. I have discovered that I have trouble being good at flyering anyway, but trying to encourage people to see your show, when you yourself would have preferred to cancel it for the day and go back to bed, is pretty tough.
I have kind of cracked the flyering now and both Lauren and I have tag lines that we say. Lauren opts for the clever and appropriate 'Don't Come....if you're easily offended', while I simply shout at people 'its got Vikings in it!'. This does seem to work and on witnessing a man actually double take on this and come back for a flyer, several other shows started lying and saying they too had vikings in their shows. I feel I have struck a people grabbing goldmine. I did once try saying their was a pirate in it too, but I have been told that pirates are now too populist which saddens me.
Other than that, our shows been selling more than I thought it would. The shows got slicker as well as the audiences getting better. We managed to divide the audience yesterday though with the right hand laughing loudly, but the left being deadly silent. This had upset me until I bumped into a couple today who said they had been the day before and loved it, but their side was quiet because an older man had fallen asleep and made everyone a bit awkward. I have resigned myself to making the show louder and put in less comfy chairs so this cannot happen again.
Also had a nice set at the 99 Club tonight. All the other acts were ace (Matt Crosby, Caroline Mabey, Caroline Clifford and Henning Wehn), and it was an odd but very fun little room. Tried two new gags which worked ok, and was happy to have from sketches for a bit. I am aiming to have written a whole load of new stuff by the end of Edinburgh, so we'll see if I can be disciplined enough. The beer says no.
Lastly, saw Pappy's Fun Club today which was truly truly brilliant and one of the best shows I've seen in ages. I couldn't rave about it enough, just go and watch it.
Also watched James Dowdswell's show 'Wine' which I really enjoyed. Some truly cracking gags and lovely stories. He deserves to do damn well with that. Go see them both! After you've seen Tea and Cake of course.
Right, if my bed had a phone it would be calling me, so I'm off. More reviewers in tomorrow, so need beauty sleep to make sure there are as few screw ups as possible and therefore they can only hate it for its substance, writing, and performance. Oh the fear.
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